Wednesday, September 30, 2015

I went to college at UT in Austin and besides my apartment I pretty much lived at Hula Hut. I may or may not have spend so many hours on the patio with friends one day that we had 2 meals!

When I found out that they were opening a second location in Little Elm (only 25 minutes from me) I was so so so excited! They pushed back the opening date many times so I was thrilled when I found out it opened last Monday!

It was so so good! Reminded me so much of the one in Austin. The food and layout is pretty much the same. It is built over a man made pond that gave a great atmosphere. It is the same pond used by Hydrous a wakeboard park so while you eat you can watch people wake board. It is pretty cool.

Lots of great boat decor and they really stuck to the Hawaiian theme. Every server said Aloha when they greeted us.

This is right when you walk in the restaurant. You are greeted by a hula girl and a huge bar with a view of the water.

This is a view of the main indoor dining room

This is a HUGE patio just like in Austin. Same layout with a seperate area in teh back with huge bar. If you look out the windows on the left you see the wake board park. If you look out the windows on the right you see the other section of the water and instead of a big fish like they have in Austin this one has a "volcano" that "erupts" every now and then (Avery loved it) and it has dolphin statues.

View of Volcano

Huge patio out back of main dining room. Again same layout as Austin

Volcano and view of Lake Lewisville. The waiter said that phase 2 (probably next year) is adding a boat dock from the Lake to the restaurant.

View of huge covered patio from middle uncovered patio. That is the patio we ate on.

View of wake board park

The is a separate room that they are still working on. Another huge open patio for dining and private events. It pretty much mirrors the other patio. This is a new addition that they do not have at the Austin location.

View of this new area (not yet open) from the middle patio.

Overall I give it 2 thumbs up! They really did a great job! Cannot wait to go back.

Monday, September 28, 2015

Welcome to my blog. I love sharing my passions with all of you; decorating ideas, inspiration, money saving tricks, how to get the look for less, things I love, shopping tips, my family, my life, etc. I have been so blessed to have so many awesome followers so I thought it was time you get to know me a little better.

My name is Elaine Hargrove. I am a mom of 2 precious kiddos. Avery (4) and Braden (10 months). I am married to my best friend in the whole world...Geoff.

I grew up in Arlington Texas, went to high school in Fort Worth and then moved to Austin for College and went to University of Texas (hook em'). I majored in Fashion Merchandising with a minor in Business and was a Tri-Delt.

I have always loved decorating things, but my first passion was decorating faces! The summer after my freshman year in college I moved to LA and went to MUD Make Up School and became a certified make-up artist. After the summer I came back to Austin and worked at Sephora and free lanced as a make up artist for brands like Smashbox, Stila, Laura Mercier, etc while going to school.

After College I moved to Dallas and worked at Neiman Marcus as an assistant Buyer in Cosmetics. This was such a fun job! I worked with the best people and got to try and market all the latest make up products before anyone else got to see them! Pretty much a dream job. I will say I always thought being a buyer would be awesome because I grew up watching Friends and Rachel was a buyer for Ralph Lauren and pretty much got to do nothing and have a hot assistant....I will tell you...this was a lie! Haha, shocking I know (wink). That was not an accurate portrayal of the real job, but it was still awesome.

I worked at Neimans for 3 years and then my plan was to move to Los Angeles and work corporate for a Cosmetic Company in their marketing department and work with getting make-up products featured in movies. I mean....make up, celebrities, movies....yes please.

Well God had other plans....enter Geoff Hargrove.

I met him through a friend and he and I became fast friends. I had no time for a boyfriend because I was headed to LA in the next little while....right? ...wrong! Well, over the next 6 months with my new best friend Geoff I realized there was no way he could stay in the friend zone. Don't get me wrong...he is still my best friend, but also so so much more!

We decided to stay in Dallas, buy our first house and start our lives together. We got married, moved to McKinney and I got a job at JC Penney corporate buying in the Baby Department. This new job and buying a new home is where my love for design started!

(wedding picture)

(first house)

Just to give you a little background on Geoff...the boy had NO style. I mean NONE! He just did not care about furniture and home decor. You know you hear a lot about couples getting together and combining furniture, etc....well Geoff used a file cabinet for a dresser. I am not kidding! This made things easier in the sense that I could do what I wanted when it came to decorating our new home, but I also had the problem of having a husband who placed NO value (at the time) on things looking nice. He thought a budget of $1k could pretty much decorate an entire home (bedroom, dining room, living room, etc). Well, this was NOT going to work. We had a new home...it had to be amazing! This is where I learned very quickly how to get the "look for less". I started shopping garage sales, flea markets & Craigslist for amazing pieces and taught myself how to refinish them in the garage. Slowly our house was becoming a home! I was also at the same time getting to design some of my own baby bedding styles for JCPenney so I was getting to learn about the design side as well!

Around this time Geoff decided to quit his engineering job to become a professional poker player. Yes, that is what he does for a living! Crazy right?

The beauty of his job is he had tons of flexibility and could really work anywhere! After we had been married a couple of years we knew we wanted to start a family so we decided to travel first. Like I mentioned he could work anywhere there was a casino so I took a 6 month leave of absence from work and we traveled the US. It was an amazing experience, but I will tell you...I missed having my own job. While he was at the casino I would explore the new city, but since I didn't know anyone there and we were only there a few weeks (not much time to make a bunch of new friends) it got a little lonely. This is when House of Hargrove was born! For years my friends had asked me for decorating advice, to refinish pieces for them, etc but it was really just for fun. While on this traveling adventure I decided to make a website and look for lots of ideas, etc while exploring different flea markets around the US.

When we got back home I started to collect items and had our first House of Hargrove sale out of my garage in December 2009. It was a big success and I continued to refinish furniture on the side on evenings and weekends while continuing my full time job back at JCPenny; this time buying in the Area Rug department. After gaining success with House of Hargrove I decided to leave the corporate world behind and focus solely on my business before we had children because I thought it would be the perfect job while having a baby.

I opened my first booth in downtown McKinney, then a second location in Frisco Mercantile and then opened a third location at a barn in downtown McKinney near the Old Red Lumberyard. I did this for a year and a half and then we were blessed with our precious Avery!

(this pic is taken in front of the barn)

After Avery was born decided to go to just having the monthly barn sales and closed the other 2 locations. I would fill up the barn with goodies, open one Sat a month, have a huge sale and then spend the rest of the month stocking up and getting ready for the next one. I loved it!

Around this same time we started looking for a new home. We found the perfect neighborhood (still in McKinney) and began to custom build. This was the most fun project ever! I got to design the layout, and every detail of our home. It was a full time job!! During this time I also started a Rodan+Fields Skincare business. As mentioned above I had always had a huge passion for make-up and worked with tons of skincare during my Neimans days. When I tried Rodan+Fields skincare I was amazed at what it did for my skin and I had to be a part of the company. They were really paving the way in the skincare industry and I had to be a part of it. I like to be doing lots of different projects at once! Ha.

A few years later we decided we were ready to grow our family. In November we were blessed with a healthy baby boy...sweet Braden.

Once Braden was born I said goodbye to the barn and started selling out of my home. We built an extended garage so I had lots of room to store my furniture. This was a much better schedule to allow me more time with my kiddos. Currently I work from home and do some design work for friends and very soon will be launching E-Design so I can help you with your projects as well. I truly love helping other make their house a home.

Well, thanks for stopping by and I hope you feel like you know a little more about me now. I love getting to know more about my followers. It feels like a little family! I have met some of the most amazing people through this business. Feel free to introduce yourself below!

WELCOME!

Hi my name is Elaine and I am a Diet Pepsi drinking, ranch dressing loving, DIY doer, vintage furniture obsessed wife and mom! We are blessed to live in the most precious town, McKinney, TX and that is where I run my business House of Hargrove. I sell painted & distressed vintage furniture and decor. I LOVE creating the "look for less" and pinch myself everyday that I get to do this for a living. Come along with me as I share decorating, refinishing furniture, my family, some recipes (although I am not a big cook) and all things I love!